1954 – The Red Scare and Sen. Joseph McCarthy

“McCarthy has no such broad goals or plans. He does not look far ahead. He buzzes from one little investigation to another, drawn by tips from Government employees “worked up” by a staff of investigators headed by Roy Cohn, 26-year-old counsel for the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, of which McCarthy is chairman. In the course of these headline-hunting forays, McCarthy’s manner and methods bring him into conflict with people more highly placed than those under attack. Most of McCarthy’s famed struggles have begun as encounter battles, unplanned by either side. Joe, a master of the impromptu thumb-in-eye school of fighting, has come out on top in most of these scuffles, especially when his opponents tried to appease him, or spar with him, or attacked too hastily without a careful eye for the second half of McCarthy’s one-two punch.”